The Minister of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Mphu Ramatlapeng officially launched the Mother Baby Pack at a ceremony held in Butha Buthe Hospital on Friday January 28, 2011.

Speaking at the launching ceremony in Butha Butha, Dr. Ramatlapeng said mother-baby pack was initially known as minimum package. The package was first introduced in Butha Buthe hospital in 2007 and later improved with the assistance of UNICEF Lesotho.

“The Mother-Baby Pack will be used by pregnant mothers during pregnancy, labour and delivery, and after delivery during breast feeding then later the mother and her new born are expected to return to clinic after six weeks for continuous monitoring,” she added.

Caption: Minister of Health Dr. Ramatlapeng hands over Mother-Baby Pack to pregnant women. On the right pregnant women during the launching of the pack.

The pack will be provided to each pregnant mother visiting clinic, HIV positive and negative, to improve the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and AIDS.

The Government is committed to ensure these packs are available to all clinics in the country to ensure all babies are born free from HIV. Dr. Ramatlapeng appealed to the Country’s Partners to support this life saving initiative in order to sustain the program.

The Minister called on mothers to always carry their pack when visiting the clinic because, to some mothers, the package may later change according to the mother HIV status.

“As Minister of Health, PMTCT is one of my performance-indicator and therefore it is my ministry’s responsibility to ensure this program is achieved successful,” said Dr. Ramatlapeng.

The National Guidelines on Prevention of Mother to Child was also launched during the ceremony.  The Minister appealed to health workers to ensure that HIV positive people with high CD4 count are not default their medication and guide mothers to use the drugs correctly for effective results.

The UNICEF Global Chief for HIV and AIDS Dr. Jim indicated that in developed countries it is very rare for the child to be born with HIV but in Africa there are thousands of children acquired HIV from their mothers.

In Lesotho, he said, due to terrain, mothers are given mother-baby pack at early stage to take them so that if they do not return to clinic at least they will have all necessary drugs to prevent HIV transmission to the unborn baby.

The Mother-baby pack is the UNICEF project that is currently piloted in four countries namely Kenya, Cameroon, Lesotho and Zambia.

Lesotho is among the successful country to achieve significant results in PMTCT because the Government of Lesotho countribute half of the budget to the program and also there are multiple partners that are supporting this particular program in the country. The National Drugs Services Organisation (NDSO) will distribute the pack country wide.

The WHO Representative to Lesotho Dr. Jacob Mufunda applauded Lesotho for launching the mother-baby pack for both positive and negative mother in order to avoid stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS.

The ceremony was attended by Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Principal Secretary of Ministry of Health, Senior officials of Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Representatives from UN Agencies, International and Local NGOs, representatives from CHAL , Government and Baylor hospitals, community health workers, members of parliament, district Administrator, pregnant mothers and the public at large.